The state secondary education board will not immediately issue any order withdrawing the appointments of the over 25,700 teachers and other employees in government-aided schools despite an order of a division bench of Calcutta High Court.
The board will move the Supreme Court challenging the order.
This school service commission (SSC), too, has decided to challenge the order of the division bench in the apex court.
In March last year, when the SSC had cancelled the job recommendations issued to a number of teaching and non-teaching employees following a court order, which said they got their jobs allegedly through manipulation of marks, the board withdrew the appointments.
“We are not going to issue any order withdrawing the appointments of the over 25,700 teaching and non-teaching employees. We will challenge Monday’s order,” Ramanuj Ganguly, president of the state secondary education board, said.
“Last year, when the SSC cancelled the job recommendations, we, too, withdrew the appointments. Now, the commission is also moving the Supreme Court against the order.”
A board official said: “The schools cannot run if so many teachers, many of whom got their jobs through fair means, are sacked.”
The official said schools are already reeling from a lack of adequate teachers “because fresh recruitments could not be held in the wake of a barrage of litigations against the alleged irregularities in the previous cycle of recruitments”.
The SSC has not conducted any written test over the past eight years to appoint teachers.
Asked about the court order, education minister Bratya Basu said: “I do not want to comment on the order. But the education department will stand by those whose jobs have been snatched unjustly.”
The court order says that those who were appointed from outside the panel, after the expiry of the panel and despite submitting blank OMR sheets have to return all the pay they received, along with interest calculated at 12 per cent per annum from the date of receipt.
The order directed the district inspectors of schools to inform their district magistrates whether or not the candidates have returned the money.
An inspector of schools said: “The department has to issue an order if we are to execute what the court has said. We have not received any order yet.”